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Suspected bomber arrested in southern Philippines
Soldiers and police arrested a suspected bomber and seized an explosive device with a mobile phone trigger in a southern Philippine province, police said Thursday. Kasan Datukon, 29, was nabbed early Wednesday during a routine inspection at a road checkpoint in Pigcawayan town in North Cotabato province, on the main southern island of Mindanao, police chief Senior Inspector Raulito Soyum said. Three other men who boarded the minibus with Datukon also were held for questioning, Soyum said in an interview with DXMS radio. Maj. Gen. Agustin Dema-ala, commander of the army's 6th Infantry Division, said the bomb was made from a 60 mm mortar round attached to a mobile phone. Datukon placed the bomb inside a bag on the floor at the front seat of the minibus that was headed to Cotabato city, Soyum said. The suspect later offered his seat to an old man and transferred to the roof of the vehicle with other passengers, a practice common in remote areas where transportation is difficult, Soyum said. The bag was discovered at the checkpoint and the driver immediately pointed to Datukon as the owner. The device was rigged to explode with a call from another cell phone carried by Datukon, Soyum said. Dema-ala believes Datukon is a member or a recruit of the al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group and trained in bomb-making by operatives of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian-based terror group also active in the southern Philippines. He said the bomb was similar to other improvised explosive devices discovered or set off in several southern cities, and traced back to the Abu Sayyaf. The military has been conducting a massive manhunt for Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani on Mindanao.
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